Professional floor-layer ? Following on from another thread. What gives a floor-layer or lets say a taxi driver that has fitted his own flooring only the right to call themselves a professional floor-layer? What governs our trade in what status we can self appoint ourselves? What do you lot think? What can we try and do to stop "so called professionals" calling themselves professional? How can we educate the public that someone calling themselves a "professional" could mean the opposite?
by having a governing body, but as weve all discussd before it aint gonna happen overnight We actually govern ourselves truth be told Only thing that sets us from the rest is we continuingly do the top job, and have the knowledge base to carry on doing so to the highest standards or so ive heard...
So basically the few of us need the associations / institutes we are members of to invest our membership fees to advertise us "professional" installers, to educate the public to use us? Do we get that from our associations / institutes ? How many of you are a member of NICF , CFA , BWFA etc? Are we getting back of them the promotion you think you deserve for your membership fees? More to teh point, do they have enough money to promote you? do they have enough members to cover the costs? i dought it to be honest. It needs to work both ways ,they need members to pay for advertisement after all ! What do you lot think?
Something needs to be done. Personally, I'm putting the City+ Guilds logo on my van and website and generally promoting the nvq2. City +Guilds is something most people associate with training and hopefully shows to punters that I should know what I'm doing
Need to get the manufacturers to endorse installers from "xyz" association / training body and offer a backed up warranty if these installers are used (like Quickstep are doing but over a larger range of products). It's a shame in a way that the everyday materials we use don't require any form of certification to use. If they all contained some form of mildly hazardous material and we had to be checked regularly to ensure things were being done within regulations it might help getting the public educated.
See for those of us that do a decent job without official qualifications/members of associations/institutes this could just seem like a way just to get money from us. At the moment I don't feel inclined to join any, Thinking, Financial advisors of the 1980's qualified/members of financial institutions/ recognised body = selling of pensions/ endowments= worthless. Me old dad, (not qualified) put your money into houses, sound advice I didn't take. Bankers, need I say more!! A certain window company, You know the one I mean, I say you buy one you get one free, Members of every glazing federation/organisation going, and a right bunch of t$%^%&%^ Could go on and on, So call me cynical, but I personally take no notice at all of qualifications/memberships/associations for any trade. Anything I want doing I go by recommendation and the person doing the job, wouldn't even think about asking about qualifications, and don't think I've ever been asked if I have any.
Yep, I'm with you there, I've never been asked about qualifications. The usual inquiry starts off as..."hello, I'm Mrs So-andSo, you did my neighbours lounge and I was wondering if..."etc etc "
Anyone who earns a living by doing a particular job is by definition a professional in that job. It doesn't, however, mean that they are necessarily qualified or even competent to do that job. I think it is the qualifications of the person that need to be looked at. At the same time I take Steve's point that there are people like him who are doing good work who may not have these qualifications. We need to get the manufacturers on board to say their products will only be guaranteed if they are installed by qualified people. They probably won't because then they would shoot themselves in the foot by limiting the DIY market although they could mention different levels of warranty (if you know what I mean). Worcester Bosch don't say "Have a bash at installing one of our boilers" they always state quite clearly that it MUST be installed by a registered, i.e. qualified, Gas safe engineer. I know it is also a legal requirement but if flooring manufacturers could be persuaded to do something similar it would help to some degree. I also know it says on products they should be installed to BS whatever but half the installers don't know what that is never mind the customers.
I don`t have one. Is that the one you need to be able to work on M&S job`s. Always make me laugh, they require you to have a skills card, and every M&S I have ever been in, has a floor which has failed !
It does not mean anything Daz. Its a made up qualification / accreditation by FITA that is not recognized by any governing body. Basically no different to doing a course on LVT run by a plumber that has been watching youtube ! Means nothing. There is Accredited courses out there tho that are recognized by CAA / CSKILLS / CITY & GUILDS etc. The FITA Q&A Card and course's are currently not recognized. They might be in the future but not at the moment. Even if they was to become recognized in the future you would have to redo the course after it becomes approved. I would wait and hope it becomes recognized before you do anything with FITA. OR simply go on courses that are accredited and do mean something / approved by the governing bodies. They are available through approved training providers.
There wont be any way of governing our trade until either all the current trade bodies/associations pull in the same direction or one that gets all of the big name manufacturers on side and pulling the party line of must be nvq2 in textile/impervious as well as.... something along the lines of that qa card, most of the general public dont realise flooring is a trade and not something you can just pick up over night, ad also dont realise that you can actually get qualifications in our profession, if it was common knowledge that floorers should have nvqs then that would be a step in the right direction. Set up a national union, get the manufacturers/suppliers behind it, stop wholesalers giving accounts to builders and keep the flooring trade amongst the floorers, then educate the public about qualifications and hopefully things will progress.
A union is fine, until it`s them that dictate what we deserve to earn, not us. Not for me thanks. The opinion will always be divided, that`s why it will never happen. I have been in the trade for nearly 25 years now, and the biggest change has been the cscs card. As i`m 90% contract work, I was forced to complete my nvq. I would never have done it otherwise. But, me and all the guy`s I work with, complete our work to a reasonable standard, so we get repeat business. In this respect, I think the trade (commercial anyway) looks after itself. Anyone who is completing there work to a poor standard, is unlikely (especially at the moment) to be asked back to do any more.
Set up a union led by the flooring industry equivalent of a Scargill or Crow (that's the type always attracted to these roles), then sit back and watch the whole thing get systematically flushed down the bog, while the tw4t at the top is coining it in. "Those that ignore history are condemned to repeat it" someone once said.
